


through the darkness and the light (some sun has got to rise)

by womanaction



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 13:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12366477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: Alternate take: Angel returns from his post-Buffy's death trip.





	through the darkness and the light (some sun has got to rise)

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by scienceofficer-winifredburkle: Cordelia/Angel + "I've missed you" kiss

Angel’s exhausted, full of that kind of sadness that weighs his whole body down. It’s funny, in a way, that he’s lived so long but never carried this sort of grief before.

He’s been told he has a sick sense of humor. 

But each step closer to the Hyperion seems to lift his spirits just a little. On top of his grief over Buffy, he’s been carrying something else - homesickness. He’s not sure when he’d last felt homesick. The last time he really had a home, he destroyed it.

But he sees his friends in his mind’s eye: Fred, the newest, blushing and bashful and tougher than he’ll ever be; Gunn, trying to put on a brave front but touched and warm; Wes, thoughtful and grinning; and Cordelia, brighter than the sun, barreling at him at a thousand miles an hour, coming right out of his mind’s eye and into reality.

“Angel!” she says, sounding for one shocking moment less than 100% sure of herself. He doesn’t like it, so he screws his face up into some approximation of a smile. It must be close enough, because a second later she’s pulling him into an enthusiastic embrace.

He hugs her back, instinctively. The observer within him notes how surprising it is that he’s developed such an instinct to begin with. The pragmatist only observes that the others are not around. “I missed you,” she sighs into his ear, and he lets out a breath. 

Before he can say “I’ve missed you too” (a simple enough sentiment to express), Cordelia does something she’s never done before. She pulls away, looks at him, and presses a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

It’s not romantic. Or at least, he doesn’t think it’s supposed to be, but a little shock runs up his spine anyway. She gives him a flashbulb smile and now the others are there and he can’t do...whatever he’s supposed to do with that (kiss her back? Have a talk about boundaries in the workplace? Cry because he wasn’t supposed to feel like this ever again, even if it’s just a little bit?). So instead he just awkwardly says “Yeah, I...that...me too.”

( _Great job,_ mocks the devil within him.  _I guess that’s why you don’_ _t talk much, huh? You don’t deserve her to care about you, you’re just a weakling, that soul has broken you like a horse_.)

But Cordelia just smiles again, less bright and more mysterious, and says, “Duh, I knew that” which he thinks is Cordelia for “You big lunkhead, I love you (in a platonic way, probably, but then again, who knows?).”

This time, he smiles without having to try.


End file.
